Sunday, April 26, 2015

V is for Volumes

Since my first son was born 12 years ago I've written volumes about my children and about being their mom. And not just in this blog. On paper. In journals. Lots and lots of journals. You dear reader get the best, the prime rib if you will, of those entries. For years prior to the arrival of my first born I sporadically kept journals. I have one from the three months I spent in Europe in 1990 and another of the summer I spent working for Peach Tree Circle Farm. There are others but they tend to ramble or go months and months between entries.The reason I've been able to keep this current spate of journals going is that parenting is something new everyday. Just when you think you've figured your kids out they change, just when you get used to a phase, it's over. You find that you can barely keep up with their shoe size much less the inner workings of the growing psyches.

So you write entries in journals and try to grasp moments, catalogue them, file them away for when there's time to revisit them.

Entries like:

- Parenting is explaining that the "touchie takie" rule applies only to food and not to 59¢ items at the Christmas Tree Shop.Nice try guys.

- parenting tip #4891: The toddler who does not poop in his diaper all morning will unload with a colossal dump the moment you arrive at: a) the park, b) his big brother's piano lesson, c) the library, d) all of the above.

- Tonight I told one of the boys that if he couldn't eat his dinner, could he at least artfully arrange it on his plate?

No sense wasting food and sacrificing good design too.

- I think we can all agree that over weight guys with white beards and nicotine habits should not don Santa hats.

1 comment:

Volumes of joy kids are. Kudos for keeping the journals. A friend of mine has been a single mom forever and writes a letter each year to her daughter. When the girl is 18 she'll give them to her. Can you imagine how cool that will be? Great post.